Tuesday, 21 January 2014

MPOV: Riddick

Five years after The Chronicles of Riddick, Riddick has become increasingly uneasy in his role as Lord Marshall of the Necromonger fleet. His refusal to swear into the Necromonger faith has caused dissent among his subjects. Riddick strikes a deal with Commander Vaako; the location of Furya and a ship to take him there, in exchange for Vaako becoming the next Lord Marshall. Led by Vaako's aide, Krone, Riddick and a group of Necromongers arrive on a desolate planet. Recognizing it is not Furya, Riddick kills most of his escort when they attempt to assassinate him. In the chaos, Krone causes a landslide and buries Riddick alive.

Emerging from the rubble with a fractured leg, Riddick manages to reset and splint his broken leg and fend off native predators: vulture-like flying animals, viper-like swarms of water animals and packs of jackal-like beasts. Needing time to heal, Riddick hides himself within some abandoned ruins. Riddick later sees a vast savanna beyond some rocky cliffs, but the only passage through is guarded by poisonous, scorpion-like creatures called "Mud Demons" which inhabit several muddy pools. As he builds an immunity to the Mud Demon's venom, Riddick improvises melee weapons, while raising and training an orphaned jackal-beast pup. The two eventually succeed in defeating the Mud Demons and reach the savannah. Riddick soon realizes a massive series of approaching storms are unleashing countless more of the Demons, who must keep their skin wet at all times to survive. Needing to get off-world, Riddick activates an emergency beacon in an empty mercenary station, which broadcasts his identity and presence on the planet.

Two ships promptly arrive in answer to the beacon; the first a group of bush-league bounty hunters led by a violent and unstable man named Santana, and another better-equipped team of professional mercenaries led by a man named Boss Johns. Riddick has left them a blood message vowing death to every merc unless they leave one of their ships and depart the planet on the other. Rubio, Nunez and Falco are killed during the first night, forcing a reluctant Santana to cooperate with Johns. Riddick later manages to steal power nodes from each of the teams' ships and then approaches Johns and Santana to strike a deal for their return. However, the conversation turns out to be an ambush. Johns' second-in-command, Dahl, shoots Riddick with powerful tranquilizers. In an effort to defend his master, Riddick's alien jackal brutally attacks Santana, but is shot multiple times in the throat.

The above taken from Wikipedia.

Ok, the one part which was memorable to me was his pet, the alien jackal. LOL! Well, it was nice the way he trained and brought it up. Very intelligent too. Anyway, this instalment is much milder as compared to the previous chronicles. Storyline a little slow hence at times a little dull as I would have thought it to be brutal and gory. Well, other than that, the heroic pet... cute... loved that they show Riddick's softer side.